Small boy sells paintings

Kieron Williamson is just seven years old. But last week he sold 33 of his watercolour paintings in less than half an hour.

The buyers, who spent more than GBP150,000 on the pictures, came from all over the world including South Africa and America. Kieron likes painting North Norfolk, the area in which he lives.

He got interested in painting a couple of years ago and his paintings were put on show in a local gallery. Since then he has become famous. Apart from painting, Kieron is a very normal little boy who loves playing football.

Brotherly love

One of the two main political parties in the UK has no leader at the moment. The last leader, Gordon Brown, lost the general election and then resigned.

Now there is a leadership election. The candidates include two brothers, Ed and David Miliband. Both were ministers in the last government. Now Ed has revealed who their mother will vote for. Mrs Miliband is going to vote for the only woman in the contest, Diane Abbott.

Football back in the news

The football season has begun in the UK and the England team is playing its first international game since it performed very badly in the World Cup.

Now manager Fabio Capello has explained his team's poor showing. He said they were very tired after reaching the end of the last football season. He told newspapers that the English system has four competitions, with the same teams playing in the finals. These teams contain the best players, the ones needed for the England side.

"We have to change something before the next tournament," he said.

What's your address?

The postal service is planning to remove county names from its database in the next five years. It says only postcodes are necessary.

But lots of people are very upset about this. Counties are what we call the different regions of the UK. People get very attached to these, and proud of where they live. There used to be a lot of rivalry between Yorkshire and Lancashire, for instance.

Years ago the historic counties were re-organised to make local government easier. There were huge protests and over the years the old names have quietly come back.

by Susan Young
susan@englishuk.com